1
"So my best friend in all the world didn't even mention this to me.", Amy ranted. "I've been dealing with toothbrushes while she had this magical tool all to herself! and she promised me she would help with my problem. Yet I'm lying around like some kind of...Abipon or something."
The janitor nodded. "I see. But that doesn't tell me the answer to my question. Pine Sol or Lysol?"
The two were standing in the hallway outside of Amy's lab. Amy had caught her leaving her lab with a mop bucket and proceeded to start complaining to the woman.
"You know...for the monkey house?", she continued.
Amy sighed. "The primate laboratory should be mopped with the lemon scented. Primates aren't native to coniferous forests."
The woman blinked her eyes. "Cone-what-now?"
"What now is what to do about my boy friend.", Amy answered. "If only he had posted a sex tape of us on youtube instead of this betrayal of trust."
Blinking was good. "Trust-what-now?"
"That's exactly what I mean.", Amy continued. "What can I trust now? It's like it's not even worth it to keep being Amy Farrah Fowler."
The custodian nodded. "I'm gonna go over where the monkeys can throw their crap at me. Instead of...whatever this is."
Amy called after her as she wheeled her bucket away. "Thanks for being the friend I needed, Kim."
The custodian half waved over her shoulder. It certainly wasn't a dismissive wave or one that insinuated Dr. Fowler was crazy. That could cost a woman her job.
2
"Attention, fat Americans.", the black clad person told the bus.
The figure stood clad in black: from ski mask to combat boot. The shot gun the person wielded had pushed the people on the steps up into the lap of the bus driver. Now they were spilling into the bus aisle, making way for the bulging duffel bag the terrorist had dragged on the bus.
"You L.A. natives should be accustomed to this by now. AK-47 bandit, bus full of hostages...my! This 'Land of Opportunity' seems to be more of a land of criminality. For the threats you have given the world you will now suffer!"
The bus driver turned to the criminal. "Hey, we don't take no crap from no terrorists any more."
The shot gun gave him his response.
As the disguised figure reloaded to replace the single discharged shell, words poured forth again. "I suppose you don't actually have to abide my threats. I only have a few shredding shots loaded at any given time and you're all in a confined area. I would eventually run out. So...
"Who wants to be first?", the figure's gaze traveled over one side of seats then the other. "What, no one? You have to hide behind your planes as you kill instead of get your lazy fat asses up and do something to protect your so-called rights? Right to speak garbage? Right to not produce anything but fear?
"Does no one here have the right to be a hero? To actually do something when the chips are down? Or are your 'taxes are too high' mouths going to keep quiet until the police those taxes pay for arrive?"
Silence reigned the moment.
"You know, there is actually something you can do. You capitalist swine are rich enough to have phones right in your pockets. Call the police. Call your loved ones. Call...call everybody. Let's see how long it takes to make the news."
3
Leonard burst into Sheldon's office.
"Alex!", Sheldon looked up with a grateful smile on his face. "Oh, drat it's just you."
Leonard ignored the slight. "I don't think Alex is going to arrive any time soon. And if you're a good boss, you'd call her and tell her to stay away."
"Now, why ever would I do that?", Sheldon questioned.
4
"Now, why ever would I do that?", Amy questioned.
"Dr. Fowler, your dissection can wait.", one of the grad students told her. "Just come on. You've just got to see this."
She took off her gloves and followed the twenty-something down to the R.A.s' lounge. Inside, it was packed, with grad students, faculty and staff alike. The extremely small monitor and its internet feed that everyone tried to cluster around was barely audible to merely human hearing.
"The bus was taken hostage a few minutes ago.", the off screen reporter informed as the camera angle on the bus was from a news helicopter. "The only demand so far has been for the hostages to spread word of this terrorist attack. I, for one, can only hope that this troubled young man's call for attention ends with the safety of those taken hostage."
The crowd booed. "It's always sold as a troubled young man. Army guys go nuts way more than us nerds."
"I'm not a nerd.", one of the geeks wheezed.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the unidentified culprit was female.", a woman began. "With the higher rates of mental illness coupled with the light weight firearms that made child soldiering possible in twentieth century, we're due."
Some of the crowd closest to the professor gawked at her. She shrugged. "A majority of pedophiles are female, child abusers and domestic abusers as well."
"Really?"
"Master's of Behavioral Abnormalities with an emphasis in criminal tendencies from John Hopkins."
"What's your take, Dr. Fowler?"
Only one or two turned to the closing door. "uh...Dr. Fowler?"
5
Sheldon, Raj, Leonard, Barry, even Dr. Gablehauser clustered around Howard's jerry-rigged multiple screen display. "Keep quiet.", Howard hissed. "I think they said the bus' direction changed to this way."
They all watched waiting for the camera to go back to the studio. The entire episode had the same three shots no matter what the feed was: the top of the bus, the group of police cars traveling behind the bus and the two shown in a wider shot together.
Then something new came into view. "What is that?", the voice overed reporter asked the news chopper.
A sombrero came into view of the aerial camera, followed by a long black, red-lined cape. The cape was followed by an honest to goodness panther. Both jumped over police cars as if they were hurdles on a track and accelerated toward the bus. The bus took a sharp left. While the police cars strained their brakes to follow through the turn, the cape jumped to a street light and the woman wearing it used the pole to whip her body in the new direction. The panther kept his speed through out the turn even though it meant using the parked cars and buildings lining the street as a race car would use a titled track, nearly leaving centrifugally forced foot prints in the metal and stone.
Sheldon stiffened. "I have important things to do. Alex should be watching this for me. I'm going to call her and give her a good talking to for not being here on time."
As Sheldon left Howard's workshop Howard called after him. "Just remember what happened the last time you gave her a good talking to."
6
The passengers, now hostages, gaped at Cyber Six. The bus accelerated as much as the heavy vehicle could but the woman seemed to be able to keep up and even catch up. All without mussing her sombrero or the hair that draped over her face. One passenger took a picture with their already heavily used smart phone.
"You gonna get yo' ass kicked now, Osama bin Laden.", one passenger said once they were mixed in with the others enough to disguise themselves.
"Not if I can out race the panther."
Data Seven countered the retort by slamming hundreds of feline kilograms into one of the windows on the other side. The glass gave the illusion of holding until the shock wave had no where else to roll to and the glass splintered into the bus.
"So much for the foot race then.", the criminal admitted.
The bus screeched to a much slower speed. Cyber Six nearly over shot it. However, she managed to punch through the glass of the bus' front door and whipped onto the bus' grill plate with a near splat. Data Seven clawed his way into the broken window, and with an intelligence well beyond any felines, evaluated the hostages.
Cyber Six sunk the fingers of her right hand into the grill and lifted herself up to view inside. The criminal pointed the shot gun into the bus. Her eyes widened at the increase threat to the hostages and she banged on the safety glass. After the cracks crawled out from the area of the cyber's forearm, the terrorist swung her weapon around to the window.
The cape furled and unfurled in front of the window as the cyber dropped out of sight. The criminal stomped on the gas pedal and the bus tried to gain speed. Sitting up in the seat, the terrorist could see Cyber Six braced against the front right corner of the bus with boot heels nearly biting into the asphalt. The steering wheel swung in her direction and the bus turned into the cyber in a grand arc.
Data Seven felt the shift and glanced behind him. The police were hurrying to set their cars in a make shift perimeter. He ducked his head back in and wrapped his teeth around a toddler. Pulling the child out of the bus, the panther adjusted his grip to the toddler's overalls and made a line for the nearest police presence.
Guns leveled at the cat. Data Seven ran up to the line, set down the child and raced back to the bus. Most of the police stared dumbfounded. One found the presence of mind to race up to the toddler and carry the child behind their perimeter.
The bus was placed in park. With the vehicle motionless, Cyber Six jumped through the damaged front window distracting the criminal from Data Seven biting down on another soon-to-be former hostages clothing. She landed smack dab in front of the criminal's shotgun.
The terrorist pulled the trigger. Faster than any special effects could account from, Cyber Six managed to duck beneath the blast even if she had to wrap her toes around fixtures in the bus to pull her form faster than gravity would get her to fall. The criminal stepped into to her squat knee first, smashing into Cyber Six' nose. As the Cyber stood away from the knee, the leg's combat boot lashed out into what would have been Cyber Six' solar plexus. You know, if the bundle of nerves that controlled her digestive track had not been surgically redesigned by a mad Nazi eugenicist.
The criminal pointed the shot gun at Cyber Six' chest and the woman barely managed to dodge to her left to avoid the spray. The figure hook kicked the back of her neck as she was facing away. Cyber Six forced herself back into the aisle of the bus, spinning the criminal around. The terrorist used the momentum into a much harder jumping back kick - connecting the sole of her boot with Cyber Six' face.
Nearly any other person would have had a mortician picking cartilage and skull out of her brain pan. Cyber Six wondered how a mere person armed with only a shot gun could hold her off for so long.
The criminal kept her legs bent and fell into her own crouch, aiming low at the cyber. She managed to jump over the next blast with only a small hole or two in her cape's red lining to show for it. The criminal swung the butt of the shot gun up, using gravity pulling Cyber Six down to bash between her legs. Cyber Six slid off the gun and the criminal brought the gun down on her face.
Cyber Six was forced against the windows of the front of the bus, leaving room between her and the terrorist. She saw down the barrel of the gun. Yanking the driver's pulled back plexiglass separator between herself and the criminal, she managed to stop most of the shot gun blast. The remaining momentum carried her out of the hole in the window she had entered through.
The criminal spun to face the interior of the bus. Data Seven raised an eyebrow at the criminal but did not snarl. After all, he was holding another passenger's coat between his teeth. The criminal did not cry out either. The shot gun poised to do all the speaking.
Data Seven hurled the passenger at the other side of the bus and fell out of the window. The criminal grabbed the bag that was brought on at the beginning of all this and strapped it on. Just as the passengers were beginning to stand and Cyber Six was pulling her now bleeding form back through the front window space, the terrorist started blasting. Denied by all the screaming, all the shots landed on the bus' back window. The criminal ran and jumped through the whole that was just created.
Instantly, police loud speakers started blaring. "Drop your weapon and get on the ground!"
The shot gun itself spun out of the criminal's hands and whacked Data Seven across the snout. This was followed by a yank on a string leading from the bag. Before Cyber Six' great speed (much reduced from not being able to jump in her typical manner under the bus' low ceiling) and Data Seven's recovery could interfere, a Fulton recovery system was deployed. A helium balloon strapped to the body yanked the criminal skyward.
Police started yelling into every radio they could find to land all aircraft over Pasadena. Cyber Six took off on foot under the floating escapee, with Data Seven running along side. The police perimeter barely slowed her down as all she had to do was toss a few S.W.A.T. team members over the cars to clear the way.
As she glanced back and forth for a building that would be even close to the height of ballooning terrorist, she saw the unthinkable-even for her. The criminal cut herself off of the balloon without a plane's pick up. The criminal then deployed a fast break parachute and sped away at an ever dropping altitude.
Cyber Six lost line of sight on the criminal and the police and even the news choppers.